Who Killed Jim Cannon?

Kelley Cannon, the wife of slain West Nashville attorney James “Jim” Cannon, used to hear voices in her family’s home. Sometimes they spoke to her over the telephone in the seemingly tranquil Bowling Avenue house that she shared with her husband and three children.

And at other times, according to divorce documents filed by her husband, those voices told Kelley that her 7-year-old was colluding with them. She accused the young boy of working with the voices in her head, verbally abusing him until the family’s nanny whisked him off to school. He cried all the way there.

So it’s no surprise that, ever since a housekeeper discovered Jim’s dead body stuffed into an upstairs bedroom closet at his Bowling Avenue home more than a week ago, relatives and friends have begun pointing the finger at Kelley, even though police publicly have not named the woman as a suspect or even a person of interest in the homicide. The cause of Jim’s death has been widely reported as strangulation, though police won’t release the cause of death just yet. Authorities reportedly have only questioned Kelley, adding fuel to a real-life murder mystery that has Jim’s quiet West End neighborhood buzzing.

It was a marriage out of a bad Lifetime movie. A series of police reports coupled with the Cannon’s divorce papers—which have been largely ignored by the press—document claims of psychotic episodes and portray a toxic, unstable relationship marred by volatile arguments and Kelley’s alleged drug abuse. In March, a Davidson County judge awarded Jim temporary custody of the children and issued restraining orders and an injunction that would prevent Kelley from coming into contact with Jim or the children. Since Jim’s death, police arrested her for violating that order. Jim also had an injunction that prevented Kelley from entering the family’s home.

But someone did enter the home to strangle Jim sometime before 10:15 a.m. on June 23, when a housekeeper called 911 after discovering the lifeless man in one of the home’s closets, leaving neighbors and friends to grapple with a sensational “Who done it?” In the center of this media storm stands Kelley, an attractive brunette whom divorce papers and court documents paint as a schizophrenic with a bizarre pattern of behavior.

John Hollins Jr., an attorney who represented Jim in his divorce and who had been a close personal friend with the man for more than 20 years, described the couple’s relationship as chaotic. He characterized Jim as “one of the good guys,” and Kelley, a housewife, as explosive and aggressive. “I’m just trying in my little mind...to understand why this happened,” Hollins says, distraught and still a little stunned after returning from Jim’s memorial service. “He put up with hell for 15 years living with her and tried to make it work and went above and beyond what most husbands would ever do....”

And Kelley seems to have been quite devoted to him, too. In a surprising move, she filed a motion last week to stop the cremation of Jim’ body. His sister, Anna Stallings, who has control of what happens to her brother’s remains, wanted him cremated. An attorney for Kelley argued that she had been excluded from visitation and had not had the opportunity to see her husband’s remains. The judge ruled that Stallings should keep control of her brother’s remains and awarded Kelley an hour-and-a-half to visit his body.

The battle to see Jim’s body was a little odd, but it seems to be on par with how the relationship was all along. An emergency injunction Jim filed against Kelley earlier this year outlines a pattern of strange, psychotic behavior. She was a schizophrenic who refused to take her medication, divorce papers read. She opted instead to begin a pattern of prescription drug abuse—targeting drug stores in Belle Meade and Green Hills to fill multiple prescriptions for Percocet and Oxycontin to squelch pain for back problems Jim said she never had.

Jim and Kelley’s tumultuous 11-year marriage had all the trappings of a suspense novel—one that ends in horrific tragedy. But judging from outward appearances alone, the two also had the makings of a beaming, happy couple. Jim was a well-liked businessman who co-founded the Franklin-based Medical Reimbursements of America, a successful firm that collected delinquent hospital bills. Hollins says that Jim was “just like a little boy” who loved to hunt, fish and have fun. In fact, the man had just returned from a weeklong beach vacation with his three children days before his death. And Kelley, a graduate of Harpeth Hall, was a housewife, the kind of woman who classmates remember as the popular cheerleader, a real looker whose former love interest was, indeed, the high school football star.

Kelley has retained two attorneys: criminal attorney Peter Strianse and Andrew Cate, who will represent her in custody matters and in hearings regarding Jim’s will, among other matters.